Friday, 25 March 2016

The first update for Brick Inventions is out (v1.0.3), including several improvements and bugfixes. The most important change is the addition of shortcuts for selecting blocks and rotations. Here is the full changelog with all the changes and bugfixes:

Improvements

Added "Next level"-Button to go to the next level without having to go through the menu.

Added "Reset"-Button to reset the current level on levels where the player can run out of resources

Added shortcuts to make selection of blocks/rotations things faster (shortcuts can be edited in the options)

Maps and Inventions are now loaded automatically when created in the menu

Game detects system language to properly set default shortcuts

Changes:

Set resources from 400 to 500 on level 4

Bugfixes:

Fixed a bug that caused the sound of rockets to stop after some time.

Fixed a bug that opened the chat window when pressing [space], preventing the function to switch between "drag" axis to be called

Fixed flickering of the transparent block when the rotation is changed

One of the next things I want to improve in one of the next couple of updates is the tutorial which should be a bit more detailed and should also explain the new shortcuts. If you have anything specific you want to be improved, just write a comment below an I will try to include it in the next patch.

Tuesday, 22 March 2016

In this post I want to talk about my plans for Brick Inventions after its launch tomorrow.

I've always thought of the release as being a version 1.0 which is a complete version of the game and that I can continue to update the game with new features from there on. Besides smaller updates that contain fixes and improvements, I'm planning bigger feature updates from time to time as versions 1.1, 1.2,… which add several new things to the game.

At this point I want to point out that the following list is no complete roadmap and that there is no guarantee that all of the features will land in the game. It's more like a list of things which I'm currently thinking about and would like to see in the game at some point in the future.

More blocks

Brick Inventions is all about building something out of blocks so I want to add more blocks to broaden the range of things you can create in the game. I already have several ideas like a rubber ball or a rotation block that can be used to rotate things that are placed on it (the thought of automatic cannons that can be rotated sounds really fun).

New Singleplayer Levels

The singleplayer mode currently features a tutorial and 15 levels and I'm planning to add some more levels which will also feature new kinds of challenges that can be solved by using the new blocks.

Multiplayer

In its current state, the multiplayer mode (not including the multiplayer sandbox) has 2 maps and 2 game types which are 1 vs 1. I want to add a new 2 vs 2 mode (the network code already supports teams), which could be quite interesting as one player could be responsible for building defences while the other is attacking the enemies. Apart from that, I'm also thinking about a multiplayer “party mode” which has a selection of physics based mini games that you can play with your friends.

Steam Workshop & more

There are also several other things that I would like to implement after the release. First of all, I'm working on implementing the Steam Workshop shortly after the release so that players can share their creations or maps more easily. I'm also thinking about a slow-motion function (destroying huge buildings in slow-motion just looks awesome) and a first person camera so you can walk around in your map.

Besides the things that I've mentioned above, I also want to implement ideas from the community so if you have any idea for a new block, mode or something else, let me know.

I'm really excited for the release of the game, it's been a long time (more than two and a half years) since I started to work on Brick Inventions and I would also like to thank everybody who has followed this project through this years. I hope that you'll like the finished product.

Wednesday, 9 March 2016

I'm back with some exciting news: The Steam Store page has launched and the beta will start in the next couple of days! Therefore, I am giving away a limited number of beta keys, which you can get by following the game on twitter and re-tweeting this tweet:

I will choose the winners randomly out of the list of users that follow the game and re-tweeted the tweet above (on Friday, March 11).

Furthermore, if you have a YouTube channel, gaming website or something similar and you want a press key, just write me an email.
I will start sending keys after the beta begins (to make sure
that there are no major bugs in the game), most likely next week.

Development

So what happened since the last post? Everything went pretty well in December, but problems started to appear in January, during the first multiplayer test sessions. This marked the beginning of over a month of rewriting of the network code. I was trying to fix a bug that was really hard to find as it only occurred when testing the game over the internet but not in the local network. It turned out that the main reason why it wasn't working my own internet connection.

It wasn't all bad though. While I was rewriting the network code I also made several optimizations to it which resulted in a much higher performance (especially in heavy scenarios). Apart from the network code, I also implemented some smaller things like a player overview or an in-game chat window. In the multiplayer sandbox, players are now represented by a small camera, so you can see where other players are and what they are looking at. I also had another test of the latest build yesterday which went quite well, without any major problems or bugs.

Road to release

The game is 99% finished and the latest beta build looked very promising in yesterdays test so I hope that I will have more time to take care of all the things around the game (blogposts, videos, etc.). I'm currently planning one or two other posts (one about my plans for the game after the release) as well as one last (launch) trailer before the game launches later this month. Until then,

Thursday, 3 December 2015

In this post, I want to talk about the singleplayer mode of Brick
Inventions which I've been working on for the past months. After the
completion of the singleplayer about two weeks ago, I thought that it
was time for a new trailer since the announcement trailer is already
over a year old. Here it is:

The single-player mode will feature a tutorial and 15 different levels,
of which each one can be played in the normal mode and a challenge mode.
The challenge mode will be unlocked after completing the level in the
normal mode and alters the level to make it more difficult (for example
destroying a castle with the first strike). Completing these challenges
unlocks achievements in Steam.

There are 6 basic types of singleplayer levels:

Crown defence: In this mode, the player has a crown on a podium or tower and has to defend it from incoming attacks by constructing defences.

Castle siege: This mode is essentially like Crown Defence,
but the other way round. Here, the player has to attack a castle and
bring the crown to fall.

Transport: In this mode, the player has to build structures in order to transport and object from one point to another.

Balancing: The goal of this mode is to place a certain number of blocks on top of a small pillar without having them fall down.

Tower construction: In this mode, the player has to build a tower of a specific height.

Other: There are some levels that have other goals or mechanics that don't fit in one of the categories above.

Each level takes the core rules of one of the types above and creates
a new situation where the player has to solve a puzzle or improve his
constructions in order to beat the level.

Development

Besides the trailer, I also worked on the game itself. Here is a quick overview about where the game currently stands:

Like already mentioned in the last post, I'm currently working on the
Steam integration, which includes Achievements/Stats as well as
enabling networking over Steam. With the implementation of Achievements
and Stats being complete (only the icons are missing), I'm now working
on the networking code.

The multiplayer menu, where you can create lobbies and join existing
ones before you enter a game is almost done, lobbies even have a chat
function now. The thing I'm currently focusing on is porting the Unity
networking code to work with Steam.

Roadmap

In the next days I will continue to work on implementing the new
networking code while trying to get the other parts to 100% completion.
Internal tests on Steam will start once that is complete.

Due to the delays in the past weeks, the release of the game is now
set to Q1 2016, while the start of the beta is still planned later this
month. I'm sorry for all the delays and changes of the release windows -
it is really hard for me to estimate the development time as Brick
Inventions is my first game of this scale and it is also the first game
to be released on Steam, which makes things more complicated. Since most
parts of the game are almost complete now, there shouldn't be any major
delays though, so I'm confident that it will arrive early next year.

I hope you like the trailer, the next post will be about the beta. Until then, stay tuned!

Monday, 2 November 2015

Since it's been some weeks since my last post again, here's an update about the development state of the different parts of the game:

Development Status

Singleplayer: Over the past weeks, much work has gone into finishing the last parts of the game, especially the singleplayer levels. The singleplayer mode will feature 16 different levels, of which each one can be
played in the normal mode and a challenge mode. The challenge mode will be unlocked after completing the level in the normal mode and alters the level to make it more difficult (for example destroying a castle with
the first strike). There will of course be achievements for
completing these challenges.
Some of the levels turned out to be much more complicated to implement
and
overall it was quite a challenge to balance the levels (since all of
them depend heavily on physics). The current state is that 15 of the 16
singleplayer levels are in the game, some of them still need to be
balanced.

Sandbox: The sandbox mode is actually finished, not many things have changed over the past months. The only thing left is in the multiplayer sandbox, where some changes are needed in order to make the synchronization of the map more efficient. Besides that, there might be some smaller adjustments but as it looks now, not much work should be needed here until the release.

Inventor mode: It's basically the same as the sandbox mode - ready to ship.

Multiplayer mode: The multiplayer mode is feature complete but will need some bigger changes in the netcode (See "Steam integration" below). Apart from that, it will need some more testing to find and to fix bugs (which I'm sure there are still several in there) and to find the right balancing. Most of that will happen in the beta tests.

Steam: Currently, there is a very basic implementation of the Steam API in the game and completing it is the last big point that is needed in order to start the beta tests. As it turned out, implementing the system into the game requires much
more effort than I had anticipated after looking into it for the first time several weeks
ago. Especially the multiplayer part will be quite difficult and it will take more time to get it done.

Other things: There are still some smaller things that I want to change before the release, including changes on the maps, improvements of the interface as well as fixing the bugs on the bug-list.

Trailer & Outlook

I'm currently working on getting the singleplayer levels finished, which
should done in the next couple of days. After that it'll all be about
getting everything set up with Steam so that the beta can start as soon
as possible.

Now that the singleplayer is almost complete, it is also time for another trailer. The first trailer is already about one and a half year old and doesn't represent the game in its current state anymore. The new trailer will feature some nice footage from the singleplayer levels to give you an impression about what to expect from it.

At this point, I want to thank everybody who has been following the project all this time since its beginning over two years ago. I hope that it will live up to your expectations.

Saturday, 19 September 2015

In this post I want to talk about the multiplayer mode, which is one of the main parts of the game. I've also created a new video that shows the multiplayer mode:

How the multiplayer works

Those of you who have been following the game since its early days might already know how the multiplayer works. The basic idea is that (depending on the game-mode) every player has a crown which he has to protect. To win the game, the player has to shoot down the crown of his opponent. Therefore, you have to build defences and weapons out of blocks.

At the beginning of the game, each player has only some wood and stone which are the weakest materials in the game. In order to get more and better resources, you have to build producers. These must be placed near the resources which are randomly generated around the crown (actually, it’s an algorithm that determines fitting positions). These producers can be upgraded which improves the production speed.

The blocks

Besides a producer for each material, there are a number of special blocks for the strategic multiplayer mode. These blocks can only be placed on the floor and don’t have physics. Here’s an overview:

Then there are special blocks that are available in every game mode. Like all standard blocks, these blocks have physics and can be placed everywhere:

TNT: Explodes 5 seconds after activation

Bomb: Explodes on impact or after 15 seconds

Accelerator: Block with rolls, used to shoot blocks away. The higher the speed, the higher the energy consumption.

Rocket: Block with rockets on the side, can push itself and other blocks forward.

Trigger: Block with detector attached to it. Can be connected to other blocks which will then be activated if something enters the detector field.

Gate: Used to forward signals from the trigger. Can also perform logical operations.

Changes

If you compare the multiplayer mode today with how it was about a year ago there have been several changes.

First of all, I removed the conveyor belts together with the whole transportation mechanic from the game. The reason for that is that after several test games I came to the conclusion that I looks nice but it doesn’t really add something to the game. It even made everything more complicated, especially if you have just started to play the game.

Next, I added resources-objects to the floor which adds a little bit of randomness to the game and prevents players from building all the producers at the far end of the playing field.

Previously, I’ve added numbers to the sides of producers and other blocks which gives a better overview.

Other modes

Besides the crown defence mode, there is the tower construction mode in which the players have to build towers of a specific height. Once a player has a tower that is high enough, he has to defend it for 2 minutes in order to win the game.

I’m planning to add a special version of the crown defence game mode in which you have unlimited resources. To prevent players from spamming things, there will be a block limit for each player. In addition, there will be attack and construction phases so that you have to plan carefully how to deal most damage during a small time window.

There are also plans to implement a 4 player multiplayer map (1v1v1v1 or 2v2) but that might cause problems on slower internet connections as the synchronization of blocks generates much traffic when there are many blocks moving at the same time.

Besides the competitive multiplayer there is of course also the multiplayer sandbox mode where you can build and do whatever you want.

What’s next?

I’m still working on the singleplayer levels while improving smaller things and fixing bugs. After that I will continue to work on the Steam integration which I hope won’t take too long. I'll post more news regarding the beta in the next weeks.

Links

About the game

Brick Inventions is a physics based block game. It combines simple blocks with physics, which creates a new, unique gameplay experience as everything you build can be destroyed. Build awesome structures, invent machines, master different challenges or play against other players in exciting multiplayer battles - the game contains a variety of modes. Read more

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About Me

I'm a student from Austria, currently studying Media Technology and Design. I'm passionate about 3D art and love to create games. My biggest project so far is Brick Inventions, a physics based block game.